Molly was on the naughty spot for forty minutes today. Forty minutes of screaming, yelling, kicking and wailing. When it gets past two minutes the point of the punishment becomes irrelevant and the time out is more about putting a healthy distance between two very angry people. I walked away from her wriggling, raging body and went downstairs, deliberately taking deep breaths with every step. I sat down on the couch picked up my journal and wrote five little words:
I hate being a mum.
Right in that moment I could barely have meant it more. Reaching that kind of brutal realisation was a culmination of many factors, toilet training being a large one, but the greatest contributer has nothing directly to do with Molly or Finch. It is this darn grim mood I've been wearing, or that's been wearing me. I feel I have been walking around heavy hearted for over two months now. It's different than I've felt before. It isn't an eventful sadness, just a deep one. I am continually racking my brain to figure out why, why now? I've been continuing along the same path for 21 months now things have been progressively been getting better, easier and more hopeful. I've felt capable and at times I even felt victorious. But now I feel right back at square one. I was standing alone in my kitchen the other day, sipping green tea and feeling bleak when I found myself sighing and saying aloud 'it's like he left me yesterday'. And that's how I feel most days (at the moment). I'm not sure wether it's the looming divorce, which of course I want, there is no turning back now and severing as many ties as possible is needed and wanted. But it's like my head is stuck in the past and each thought and memory ultimately concludes with the same resounding chorus 'how did it all go so wrong? how could he? how did I get here?'
It's a round the clock pity party I'm holding in my head. I do know that. But I feel I must enter it in order to get through it. I've taken up my journal again and am scribbling down my morbid thoughts in a hope to cleanse myself of them. Cleanse myself so that I do not let my ugly attitude leak and infest my parenting. When I happened upon the above image on a late night pin-party I nodded my head, I am 'going backwards to recover that which was left behind in the rush'.
This is the first night that Molly and Finch are sharing the same bedroom. It's something I'm going to try out for a while. Before I started writing this I snuck upstairs and peaked in on them. I tucked them in and made sure their favourite blankies were close at hand if they woke up scared, I kissed their little heads and I whispered five little words:
I love being a mum.
